Black Box Helped Marfrig Migrate its Data Center with Agility and Zero Downtime

CHALLENGE

The demand to optimize its business flows led Marfrig, a global leader in the production of hamburgers and one of the largest beef protein companies in the world, to decide to migrate its physical and logical assets housed in an old data center in the city of São Paulo to another data center in Santana de Parnaíba, in the western zone of the capital's metropolitan region.

The decision to do the entire relocation in hot mode, i.e. keeping all company activities active during the process (from dismantling the equipment and transporting it to the destination data center, to reinstalling/connecting the systems and the data migration process), was challenging. After all, Marfrig's systems store and process vital information for the effectiveness of its business in all performance parameters. In Brazil alone, the company has 12 units and four distribution centers, a commercial office in Porto Alegre, and a corporate office in São Paulo, totaling about 18,000 employees.

"We knew it was a very complex project, where we had to rely on an experienced partner who was up to the task," says Thiago Barros, IT infrastructure manager at Marfrig, who adds, "In addition to the relocation, we decided to take the opportunity to perform a technological refresh, replacing all the outdated servers with the latest generation of servers and equipment in the new data center. The search was on for a partner who could support us with security and risk mitigation throughout the entire process of physical and logical relocation."

SOLUTION

It was a rigorous selection process in which experience, quality, reliability, support, costs, guarantees, and certifications in compliance with local and international standards in all services, as well as a portfolio of best-in-class solutions, were the deciding factors for hiring Black Box.

Black Box, a global integrator of IT and communications solutions, has more than 45 years of market experience and wide recognition in implementing solutions and providing services in multiple segments, including Data Center, Connected Buildings, Digital Workplace, Customer Experience, Connectivity and Wi-Fi, Enterprise Networking, and Cybersecurity.

"We already knew the quality of Black Box's services, which gave us peace of mind as we moved forward with the project," Thiago Barros assured.

Black Box was responsible for the full assessment and planning of the project, which ranged from the necessary infrastructure requirements for the equipment migration between sites, identification of the interfaces along with Marfrig's team to determine the physical and logical configuration, preparation of the plan for the distribution of rack equipment at the origin and destination (Bayface) sites, to all documentation and creation of a detailed chronogram of all activities with macro sequences, minute by minute, disassembly and assembly, and data migration.

All activities were aligned and validated directly with the areas of technology, systems development, projects, innovations, BI, and information security. The alignment meetings also involved the business areas and their respective lead users of the applications and systems involved in the migration. The activity was divided into two waves, with an implementation period of three months.

RESULT

The two relocation waves defined in exactly three months of work were completed safely and without interruption to Marfrig's 24/7 operations, core or administrative systems, or even the loading of refrigerated trucks at the distribution centers.

According to Thiago Barros, "All the moving work was so well synchronized that it passed totally unnoticed by everyone, which earned us compliments. Not only did we ensure business continuity with zero downtime, but everything went according to plan and without complications."

With the migration and replacement of equipment, including the consolidation of legacy equipment that occupied 19 racks to a new modern structure of just 8 racks, Marfrig gained operational efficiency and data speed, among many other benefits. "A good example is our ERP system, which significantly reduced accounting processing time," said Thiago Barros.